Wednesday, July 28, 2010

A Quartet of August Food Fests on the Western Slope

Steamboat Wine Festival
The seventh Annual Steamboat Wine Festival, August 5-8 kicks off on Thursday evening with an elegant Grand Tasting at the Thunderbird Lodge high on the mountain with incredible views and winds down with a second Grand Tasting at One Steamboat Plaza at the base of the mountain. Between them, they provide opportunities to sample nearly 800 wines, spirits, beers and foods from the region's finest restaurants. The James Foundation's Celebrity Chef Tour is represented at Steamboat by Bradford Thompson and host chef Jon Demel at the Sheraton Steamboat Resort. Also on the schedule are informative wine seminars led by some of the top sommeliers around. Participating chefs include stars Jamey Fader (Big RedF Restaurant Group, Boulder and Denver), Troy Guard (TAG, Denver), Brian Laird (Barolo Grill, Denver), Kate Rench (Cafe Diva, Steamboat), Matt Selby (Best Dipping Grill and Steuben's, Denver), Goose Sorensen (Solera, Denver) and Tyler Wiard (Elways, Denver). In addition to top winemakers, master sommeliers Ira Harmon and Brett Zimmerman impart their wine knowledge at festival seminars. I attended this terrific festival in 2009. Click here for tickets to this year's event.

Mushroom and Wine Festival

I'm afraid I don't know much about the Mushroom and Wine Festival scheduled for August 13-14 at Durango Mountain Resort other than two events among the mushroom-and-wine-themed activities, meals, tastings and demonstrations. A six-course, mushroom-themed dinner with paired wines for each course takes place at the Durango Mountain Club on Friday the 135th at 6:30 p.m. The following day, resort puts on a mushroom-hunting hike with guidance on how to identify edible mushrooms. The hike package includes transportation to and from the hunting area, a guided tour and a box lunch. Reservations: 970-385-2121.

Snowmass Culinary Arts Festival

Overlapping with Durango's event is the first annual Snowmass Culinary and Arts Festival, August 14-15. In addition to such local ("local" meaning Colorado) chefs as Ryan Hardy of Aspen's Montanna at the Little Nell Hotel and Frank Bonanno who owns Mizuna, Luca d'Iatlia and Bones in Denver, the festival is importint two well-known New York chefs. Chef Alfred Portale, a true rarity in 21st century dining, remains wedded to the Gotham Bar and Grill, the Greenwich Village restaurant where he launched his career 25 years ago. Laurent Tourondel, began his culinary career as chef to an admiral (or perhaps the admiral) of the French Navy and is now executive chef BLT Restaurant Group and Bon Appétit's 2007 Restaurateur of the Year. Wine and spirits purveyors and talented artists are also part of the mix.Click here for a schedule of events.

Palisade Peach Festival

The 42nd annual Palisade Peach Festival, August 19-22, includes tours through the orchards, wineries and distilleries. “Feast in the Fields,” a festival favorite, offers guests the opportunity to dine in the orchards on local cuisine paired with local wines (reservations required). Some of Grand Valley’s finest musicians will provide entertainment throughout the event. Other events include an ice cream social and street dance, Thursday, 6:00-9:00 p.m.; Friday through Sunday, Peach Festival at Riverbend Park with music, food vendors, peach cuisine with Colorado chefs, tug of war, alpaca showcase and more; Friday, 7:00- 9:30 p.m., “Feast in the Fields” at Z’s Orchard (reservations required); Saturday, 7:00-10:00 a.m., Lions Club pancake breakfast; 9:00 a.m., Peach Festival Parade; 11:00 a.m.,recipe contest and sample sales; and 7:00-9:30 p.m.,  “Feast in the Fields” at High Country Orchards (reservations required); Sunday, 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. – Palisade Sunday Farmers Market. Click here for a full schedule, including non-food/non-wine activities. Accommodations in Palisade are limited, but nearby Grand Junction not only offers ample lodging but excellent values as well. Click here or phone 800-962-2547 for more information.
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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Luxury Diner Dishes Up Comfort Food

Nostalgia reigns in Cheyenne institution known for big breakfasts

The Luxury Diner is luxurious in name only. It serves classic American comfort food, Western-style, in a cute, kitschy eatery tacked onto the Wyoming Motel between Cheyenne's main east-west drag and the railroad tracks. It's a place where the waitresses call you Sweetie or Honey or Dear, where the portions are large and food spot-on. Some chain or another uses a phrase something like, "Come in. Go away happy." And that's the truth at the Luxury Diner, where there's often a wait for a table but the fare is certainly worth waiting for.


The original diner, to the left of the entrance annex, was once a trolley car (below), evident when you look up at the ceiling. A counter stretches along one wall with tables along the other wall and the back. (Larger tables are in the room where we entered.) Red and white check tablecloths, black and white tile floors and  red curtains add to the retro-look. The walls are hung with memorabilia, including great old photographs that show Cheyenne in its heyday as a train town in the golden age of rail travel. The Union Pacific's main line is just south of the diner, and you still hear freight trains rumbling past. To those who remember when trains served large cities and small towns alike, it is a comforting, familiar sound. To those too young, it reflects the way things once were when rails of steel rather than Interstates and airplanes linked the nation. In addition to the sound of the trains, the throwback decor, the waitresses' style and the look of the place, the prices are also a blast from the past.

But what of the food? Good, hot, hearty and as nostalgic as the trackside and roadside location. They don't know how to do small portions. I tried to get a single Egg Benedict, but the waitress said, "We can't do that, Honey." No "Sorry." No "I'll ask." Just a simple statement of fact, and I liked that. One of my companions suggested getting the full portion and eating what I wanted, but I try hard not to waste food, so I passed on that suggestion and ordered a fruit cup (orange slides, cantaloupe and honeydew melon cubes and a maraschino cherry) and oatmeal ("You want raisins, Dear.") My friends were less modest with their breakfast orders. One selected a pork chop smothered in green chili with fried potatoes, a folded flour tortilla and sour cream.


Just as you can get breakfast all day, you can order lunch in the morning, and one of my companions
launched her day with a grilled cheese sandwich and thick fried potatoes.


Price check: Breakfast items, $1.45 for a single pancake to $6.25 for some of the omelets. Lunch and dinner, sandwiches $3.65 for grilled cheese to $8.98 for a steak sandwich; platters, $6.25 for chicken fingers to $9.95 for a steak sandwich; desserts, 75 cents for a scoop of ice cream to $2.75 for a sundae or house-baked baked desserts. Also, kid's lunch and dinner items, $2;15-$4.50 for ages 12 and under. 

Urbanspoon has not yet discovered the Luxury Diner, even though it's been around forever. (I suggested they add it, and I imagine that they will.) The address is 1401A West Lincolnway, Cheyenne; 307-638-8971.  

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Sunday, July 25, 2010

The Capitol Grille: Capital Dining in Cheyenne

Plains Hotel's restaurant a perennial Cheyenne favorite

When the Plains Hotel opened in 1911, it boasted a premier location across from Cheyenne's busy Union Pacific Depot. Among the well-known guests were politicians on the campaign trail from the whistlestop era and later, including Tom Dewey, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Ted Kennedy, and celebrities in Wyoming to make or promote movies including Carroll Baker, Karl Malden, Pat Wayne, Gilbert Roland, Sal Mineo, Ricardo Montalban Jimmy Stewart, Barbara Eden and Debbie Reynolds. Surely, they also dined in the hotel restaurant.

The hotel fell into disrepair, although blocks of rooms continued to be blocked off for Union Pacific crews, long after passenger service was discontinued. The beautiful depot has been restored, and the hotel received a massive makeover in 2002 that included The Capitol Grille, a restaurant whose decor evokes the Craftsman style and whose cuisine, piloted by chef Gary Trehy, is a favorite by government officials, business travelers, legislators during the legislative session and visitors who appreciate the ambiance and the ample portions. Nine of us -- eight out-of-towners and three locals -- certainly did, forking into portions that would fuel a working cowboy.

The Wyoming Quesadilla (below) is not billed as an appetizer to share, but it certainly should be. Large flour tortillas (note plural) are stuffed with onion, jalapenos, black olives, cheddar and pepper jack cheeses and topped with additional cheese and sided with the Tex-Mex condiment trinity of sour cream, guacamole and salsa. And oh yes, add chicken or steak to the filling.


The soup of the day was a takeoff on minestrone, with white beans and mixed vegetables, herbs and cheese. "Hearty" is an appropriate adjective.


The Plains House Salad combines mixed greens, tomatoes, red onions, artichoke hearts, Kalamata olives, sprouts, sweet peppers and blue cheese crumbles. There's a choice of thick dressings and two slices of herbed crostini come on the plate. The large salad (top image, below) is huge, and even the small version (bottom image) is sizable.



A raft of crostini come with a spread-your-own topping of finely chopped feta, Greek olive, tomato, red onions and artichoke hearts, and a small ramekin of sun-dried tomato pesto. 


Ricotta-stuffed shells are lurking somewhere under this thick blanket of Alfredo sauce, topped with cheese (and maybe crumbs) and quickly browned. This rich-looking dish was ordered at the other end of the table, and I snapped a quick photo but didn't inspect it or remember to ask.


Red meat rules in Wyoming, and the images below show variations on the theme of beef or lamb that is served with a choice of garlic whipped potatoes, baked potato, fried Yukon golds (the kitchen had run out earlier) or cranberry wild rice, plus sauteed mixed vegetables and a sprinkle of chopped parsley on the plate rims. The top photo shows the Rocky Mountain Lamb chops with Bearnaise and marion berry sauces, and the lower one the 14-ounce grilled ribeye. 




A steak-size portion of grilled fish is available with the same choice of sides as the meat dishes.


Apple-walnut cheesecake garnished with fresh fruit, whipped cream, mint and caramel sauce.


A mountainous slice of chocolate cherry mousse cake with decorative loops of whipped cream.

 

Price check: At dinner, appetizers, $7.95-$12.95; soups and salads, $3.50-$6.96; entrees, $9.95-$29.95; desserts, $6.95. The $20 range between the least expensive entree (stuffed shells) and the most expensive (the lamb chops) is worth noting.


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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Brown Palace Installs Rooftop Beehives

Honey from above to be served at high tea in the lobby

A colony of honey bees has checked into Denver's landmark Brown Palace Hotel and Spa -- or rather checked onto its roof. The colony's mission is the production honey for the traditional, elegant afternoon tea and hopefully in the future toward signature spa treatments. While past Brown Palace guests have included crowned royalty, the hotel started with its own two resident queen bees supported by a court of 20,000 worker bees that are expected to grow to 140,000 by the end of the summer. The hotel has named this "the Bee Royalty Initiative."

The Brown has long had its own historian, and now it also has hired a dedicated beekeeper, Matt Kentner of Kentner Farms. He removes bees for people who don't want them and sources beehives to local farmers and ranchers who do want them for essential pollination of their crops. He's also a "personal beekeeper" and now is working with the Brown's colony. In the city, the bees buzz around landscaped city avenues and parks dipping into the pollan of flowering trees, bushes and other fblossoms to make honey out of their haul.

Colony collapse, unexpected decrease in bee communities, has been a real concern to growers, and the Brown is doing its part to improve the situation. As Kentner reminds people, “Unfortunately there are a lot of misconceptions about the nature of bees and what crucial roles they play in our food supply and environment. The affects of the decline in bees is extremely alarming and it’s important that we build awareness and do our part to help,”

Toward that held, the Brown Palace has donated two beehives to the Denver Beekeepers Association to assist in establishing hives in the Denver community and has also partnered with Denver Parks & Recreation to plant bee-friendly flowers in the nearby Civic Center Park.

“We’ve worked for years to bring urban beekeeping to fruition in Denver and The Brown Palace has demonstrated a true commitment to fostering these efforts in our community,”  according to Marygael Meister, president of the Denver Beekeepers Association.

The hotel is running a "Name the Hives Contest," with contributors of the two winning names rewarded with a weekend getaway at The Brown Palace. Enter by going to the Brown's dedicated Facebook page.
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Monday, July 19, 2010

Good Food and Green Practices at Red Feather Lounge

Downtown Boise eatery raises the eco-bar

When I was researching the book, Culinary Colorado, nearly a decade ago, chefs who used local ingredients were cutting-edge. Now, close-to-home sourcing is common, and cutting-edge chefs are not only sourcing locally but are often growing their own -- and I don't just mean a bit of basil or a clump of chives out the back door. Boise's Bitter Creek Ale House and adjacent Red Feather Lounge, under the same ownership and sharing the same kitchen, raise the eco-bar.

Some people go to either of these places just to drink and nibble, but serious foodies can get some seriously good food there, especially in the swanky Red Feather Lounge. "Just Eat Local" is the restaurant's slogan. The front of the menu -- which customers are invited to "steal" lists the dishes du jour and their prices, and the back lists the regional purveyors by name and location.

Because I was in Boise for a meeting, the schedule was such that I ate twice in Red Feather's wine cellar -- once as part of a mid-day culinary walking tour and once for dinner. Both featured excellent dishes -- and we knew where they were coming from, and thanks to the on-site composting right in the cellar, we knew where the table scraps were going too. Important note: The bins where the worms are doing their work aren't gross and don't smell. Vegetable matter table scraps mixed with shredded newspapers are placed into large bins and covered with tarps. Used paper menus, in fact, become worm food too. At the bottom of each is a line: "THIS MENU TO BE CONSUMER BY THE URBAN WORM." Compost is sifted before being added to soil, and anything the worms didn't finish up is simply added to the next bin.

Reuse, recyle and compost are worthy practices, but people wouldn't be patronizing the Red Feather Lounge if their food weren't so good. Following are some of the dishes on the menu in mid-July:






Basil ricotta gnocchi with preserved heirloom tomato sauce and the sweetest imaginable braised carrots.


Braised Lava Lake lamb riblets from the ranch widely acclaimed at producing Idaho's best grass-fed, 100% organic lamb.


Grilled kale Caesar with shaved Idaho sheep's milk Borrego chese and crushed croutons.


Dad's Smoked Idaho Trout ("Dad" being the owner's father-in-law) with roasted gardlic, red onion, capers, horseradish homage blanc and enormous house-made crackers.



Rosemary and Dijon-rubbed Idaho lamb chops, most likely from Lava Lake, with Yukon Gold potato confit, those fantastic carrots, peas and small amounts of other vegetables.


Turkey casoulet with organic Idaho turkey leg confit in olive oil and summer beans.


Frozen mulberry souffle.


Strawberry shortcake made with poppyseed shortcake, local strawberries, lemon custard ice cream and sweet cream.


House-made beignets with butterscotch dipping sauce and the requisite amount of powdered sugar.

Price check: At dinner,soup and salad, $5-$11; appetizers, $4-$11; wood-fired pizzas, $9-$12; entrees, $8.50-$22; "Pleasures" (desserts), $6. Also three-course fixed-priced dinners with choice of two items per course, $24 for one or $32 to share.

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Friday, July 16, 2010

Sour Cherry Spice Cake

Hand-picked fruit finds its way into home-made cake

There's a sour cherry tree in the alley around near my house. Every July, I try to pick some some of the cherries and make "something" with them. Yesterday, for a potluck, the "something" was this Sour Cherry Spice Cake, dark with nutmeg and cinammon and moist from the juice that even sour cherries give off.


Sour Cherry Spice Cake

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp.ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 Tbsp. baking soda
1 cup 2% milk
1 quart sour cherries, stemmed and pitted
Nonstick spray for pan
Confectioners' sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
1. Cream together butter and sugar until light-colored.
2. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

3.Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
4. Add dry ingredients alternately with milk to the butter/sugar mixture, and mix until smooth and creamy.
5.Fold in the cherries.


6. Spray a rectangular 9 by 14 -inch pan (I used Pyrex). Pour in batter. Bake 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

7.Cool completely on a wire rack. Sprinkle top with confectioners' sugar.
 
 
Serves up to 24 when cut into squares.
 

Note: This recipe can be cut in half and baked for 30 to 35 minutes in a 9-inch-square baking pan.

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Saturday is Farmers' Market Day in B-Towns

Boulder and Boise both boast great famers' markets

Last week, I played hooky from a meeting in Boise and skipped out of the convention center for a couple of hours to explore the city's fantastic Capital City Public Market. It stretches along North Eighth Street between Bannock Street and the Grove Plaza in front of the convention center and also half-a-block or so in either direction on the cross-streets. The plaza itself invites lingering. A band plays, kids splash in a fountain and it is an upbeat scene. Because I live within a short walk of the Boulder County Farmers' Market, my farmers' markets are pretty high, and Boise more than meets them.

It's a fantastic farmers' market with fresh produce, flowers and plants, wines, food carts, breads and other baked goods, artisanal cheeses, prepared foods and an outstanding selection of artisans. Among the fruits, berries are sublime right now (or were last week, anyway), and among the many vegetable stands, I was touched by those staffed by refugees from troubled lands. I spoke to a young man from Somalia who made his way to the US via Kenya. His must be a heart-wrenching story, and I hope that it has a happy ending in the fine agriculatural land of western Idaho or eastern Oregon.

The market operates Saturdays from 9:30:a.m. to 1:30 p.m. until sometime in September. Contact information: Capital City Public Market, P.O. Box 2019, Boise, Idaho 83701; 208-345-5928.

Some Farmers' Market Fotos

Here's a selection of images from this excellent market:















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